The Bells Go Down

Until 9/11 happened this was a story that could never be an American story. The Bells Go Down is the story of an auxiliary fire fighter unit in London's East End and stars British music hall comedian Tommy Trinder as one of the volunteers.

As the United Kingdom was under attack I'm sure one of the few exemptions in the British Armed Services was being a firefighter. The regular London Fire Department was working 24/7 as soon as the Battle of Britain started and they needed all the help they could get. Hence these Auxiliary Fire Units headed and trained by Finlay Currie and James Mason whom I was surprised to see in a supporting role as his career was on the ascent at this time.

Mason himself said that this was his one and only appearance in an Ealing Studio film and one which he was proud to make as he admired the comedies that studio turned out post war, especially those with Alec Guinness.

Trinder whose work I was unfamiliar with until seeing this is a bit of a lunkhead when he starts but certainly proves to have the right stuff. In many ways this film is similar to the wartime British movie The Way Ahead where some rather unmilitary type civilians trained by David Niven and William Hartnell into fighting British troops.

Hartnell is in this film too, but not as a trainer. He has a very nice part as a veteran of the International Brigade who has experienced the Spanish Civil War and saw the air raids on Madrid. He steadies the group from the inside with his knowledge of how serious this work is.

And this film is yet another salute to the people of Great Britain who pulled together in their finest hour. More than Trinder, the whole lot of them had the right stuff.

This film was based on the diaries of a serving AFS fireman who won the British Empire Medal before being invalided out and serves as a fine tribute to the AFS's work. It gives a realistic impression of the early days of the 'phoney war' in 1939 when rather like the home guard, the AFS wasn't taken seriously and was thought of by many as a bunch of disorderly Army dodgers. The change of tactics by the Germans that bought about the London Blitz soon corrected that perspective and the scale of the bombing and devistation is captured extremely well with special effects that are second to none for the time. Trinder's comedic mugging is balanced out by other members of the fire crew and the storyline provides a very good take on the highs and lows the AFS had to face. Given when it was made (1943)

The film is admirable in every aspect. It is almost documentary in its realism, although everything is faked, and yet it succeeds in giving a totally convincing picture of this tremendous plight of fighting the war by fighting its fires at the peril of everyone's life. These men are not called fire soldiers for nothing. Accentuating the value of the realism of the film is a number of prominent actors appearing as quite ordinary men in the fire brigade, like James Mason, Finlay Currie, William Hartnell, Mervyn Johns and even the comedian Tommy Trinder. It's amazing how this film was done. It was all made in studios, and yet the fire couldn't have been made more burning. Of course, much of it must have been collected out of actual footage of those days, you don't burn a city down to make a movie, and adding to the impact of the film is its almost architectural structure. The Blitz and its horrendous inferno of burning death doesn't start until half of the film has passed, all is just preparations before then, after which it is all serious business indeed. At the same time, there is plenty of good humour, many human aspects as women also play a significant part in the complex documentary of human lives under the Blitz, and still this was only the beginning. As Churchill said after the battle of Britain had been won, this was only the end of the beginning.

The film is set in London during the "Blitz" in 1940. The story follows Tommy Trinder's character from his enrolment in the Auxiliary Fire Service, through his training and eventual fire-fighting duties during air raids. The style of the film now appears very dated but is a fascinating snapshot of the period. Trinder's acting is a little wooden, the special effects are crude but it provides an excellent historical record of the courage and high esteem in which London's fire-fighters were held and the tasks they faced during the period.

James Mason later recalled with satisfaction that "my only contact with what was to become artistically the most distinguished workshop in the British film industry" when he joined the cast of this tribute to the Auxiliary Fire Service by Ealing studios.

Basil Dearden's first solo venture as director was intended to bring home the havoc wrought by the blitz and pulls no punches on the shattering effect it had on morale as well as the criminality let loose, the slackening of public morals and the resentment servicemen felt towards workers in essential war work who they saw as earning "three quid a week for keeping out of the army!"

To modern eyes there's the usual anomaly of two young newlyweds looking aghast at their humble new flat which seventy years later looks positively palatial.